The book Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, has started out as an amazing book. The concept of isolation and love are very prominent, but sometimes not completely believable.

Since the book is about a girl who is not able to leave her home due to a rare disease that she has, the topic of isolation is absolutely seen. With the rules of only letting in Maddy’s nurse and occasionally her tutor, this really isolates her from the outside world. As well this limits her from the many opportunities that a regular teenager would have. When a boy named Olly moves in next door, Maddy slowly realizes how much being isolated has harmed her in the 18 years that she has lived. Maddy doesn’t seemed to be bothered by being alone which does not seem believable.

One of the best things about this book is the love that happens. I’m a sucker for romantic stories, so this love story made me very happy so far. The romance between Maddy and Olly does seem very real and authentic and the two of them are adorable. However some things about their relationship do not add up. For example in real life Maddy’s nurse would probably not risk both Maddy’s life and her own job just so Maddy could meet Olly in person. The escalation of the relationship also does not seem realistic since they do seem to fall for one another rather quickly. Surprisingly though the escalation of the relationship does work well with the story and is very cute.

One response to “Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon”

The second half of this book I really enjoyed, and this was due to the character development, shocking ending, and overall how the beginning and ending connected back to one another.

The first half of this book was really cute and fun, however the second half was extremely interesting and shocking which made this book amazing. The reader is able to see how much Maddy has changed from the beginning of the book to the end. She begins very obedient and stuck in a routine but by the end of the book she is taking her life into her own hands and experiencing everything that she missed out in the first 18 years of her life. Theres going to be several spoilers ahead just for a little warning. In the second half of the book Maddy does the unthinkable and leaves her house to stop a fight between Olly and his dad which puts her own life in danger. This is the exact opposite of how she acted in the beginning of the book only ever seeing two people from the outside world who had been decontaminated. Sadly however she is no longer allowed to talk to Olly after this happens and she soon falls back into who she used to be. However she isn’t entirely the same as Olly still weighs on her mind and she doesn’t act the same with her mother as she did previous to incident. As well she no longer gets to see Carla, the woman who spent so much of her life with. Maddy’s world was turned upside down. She went back to who she was for a short time but her love of Olly and the outside world caused her to run away with him to Hawaii. This almost caused her to die, but Maddy was finally being brave and started to have fun which never happened when she was locked away in doors.

I think the most shocking thing that happened when Maddy returned is that she got an email from the doctor that treated her in Hawaii who doesn’t think that Maddy was sick to begin with. This idea makes Maddy start to look into her medical history that her mom had hidden. She then learns that she never has been sick and that her mom lied to her all these years. This was extremely shocking to me because Maddy’s mother seemed so caring and loving of her daughter. This ended up connecting back to the beginning of the book when Maddy talked about losing her brother and her dad, which lead her mother to ‘protect’ Maddy from the outside world by convincing both of them that she was sick. This ending made this book stand compared to other young adult romance books that are predictable.

Overall this book was amazing and I couldn’t put it down when I began reading it. The characters were easy to get attached to and the story seemed to be a modern day version of Rapunzel. I recommend this book to any teen who enjoys books with twist endings and lots of emotions.